


Wait for the Night

by guileheroine



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Canon Era, Drama & Romance, F/M, Politics, star-crossed lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 07:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15456393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guileheroine/pseuds/guileheroine
Summary: A chance encounter with a common young man befalls the Crown Princess just as a court crisis does, and they both change her life. Masami royalty AU.





	Wait for the Night

_“Alright, I brought you something too, and it’s not the Ember Island octopus. That won’t be ready until the party tomorrow.” She takes the morning’s sweet from her pocket and slips it into his. “For your lunch break.”_

 

_It’s 4am on the junk store rooftop; Asami’s head is swimming in a good way for the first time all day and night. She snaps back to their surroundings when a noise alerts her to the presence of the shopkeeper’s cat, who they find glaring at their backs._

 

_“He knows I’m not supposed to be here,” Mako laughs, glancing back momentarily at its unblinking face._

 

_“Well, neither am I, you’re not so special.” Asami nudges her elbow into his arm, glancing up for the anticipated eye roll. It comes, and so does the arm, around her shoulders._

 

_“Whatever, drink your champagne.”_

 

_She smooths the sleeve of his jacket under her hand, shivering in the slight breeze. “Toast,” she sips and announces quietly into the night, feeling the liquid slosh in the thin metal of the can._

 

_“And to what now?” He says, probably rolling his eyes again._

 

_Asami shrugs. “Us.” She isn’t sure if her heart shrinks or grows at the saying aloud; and tries to work it out as she stares coolly ahead. The sea way out on the horizon is still too dark to discern, but the city lights mellow against the bluing sky as she huddles closer. “I wish we could run away.”_

 

_Mako is unresponsive for a long moment. Though his grasp around her shoulders betrays nothing, she can practically sense the words hesitating in his mouth, disappearing somewhere between a swallow and a slight cough, before he eventually says, “So, uh. That’s the champagne talking…?”_

 

_“Oh, what, am I embarrassing you?” Asami’s turn to laugh, as she removes her hand from his to pull her knees in against the chill. She tilts her face up to shake her hair back, feeling the dull weight of sleep on her brow bone. “Just let me dream for a moment.”_

 

_He cracks a smile at last. He withdraws his arm and takes another sip of beer. “Ember Island octopus waiting, and you’re dreaming of me?”_

 

_~_

 

**PART ONE**

 

Having parked and dismounted her moped, Opal pauses for a moment to brush her hands off on her trousers before speaking.

 

“Anyway, girls’ night. If you’re still _alive_ after your little date with Lord Longshot or whatever on Sunday -”

 

“Longyang. Not Sunday, Opal. I have to write this - announcement. The engagement.” Asami’s nose wrinkles of its own accord and she mentally wards off the impending cloud of dread, well practised at it at this point. “I mean I’ve got a template… in my head...” She shakes her head as if to shake the very thought off.

 

Opal raises a curious brow as they walk together out of the garage. The warden bows his head as they leave and Asami inclines hers politely in return. “Wait, _you_ have to write...? Can’t you just give them a quote or something...”

 

Asami shrugs. “Everybody wants me to start taking the reins, speaking for myself -”

 

Her schedule is torture. Her father is ever so smart. Anything public-facing (increasingly, _anyone_ -facing) is delegated to her - for a _smooth transition_ , urges Raiko’s slimy voice in her head. They dress the burden up like a privilege and Asami, with no other options, doesn’t have it in her to resist except nominally to the odd sympathetic ear, in private moments of utter frustration. Giving her father the cold shoulder means only that it’s harder for her to go and argue any of these stifling demands, slid her way easier than ever all of a sudden. A long line of aides, advisers and other courtiers ensure King Hiroshi reaches her all the same. She feels desperately unequipped.

 

“Show ‘em you have control of the narrative, right...” Opal finishes, clenching her fist, the gesture comical on her sweet face with no genuine ire behind it. “Okay, but why this? It’s... frivolous.”

 

“I have to be more accessible, too.” Her father - being mired in deadly secrecy having been his downfall - is sort of the roundabout architect of that as well.

 

Opal rolls her eyes. “Oh, Asami, you weren’t ‘accessible’ the first five times I talked to you. And I got to _talk to you_. I wish they’d leave you alone.”

 

Asami shrugs in resignation, her accord unnecessary, implicit, long voiced-out. “The _illusion_ of control,” she says wryly, returning to Opal’s initial comment. “Jiro wants me to meet this lord whatever but he practically handed me a script. Which I’m pretty sure my father wrote. I swear I’d be glad for him to go if -”

 

If she didn’t have to take his mantle, of course. Opal lays a soft hand on her arm. They stop just on the doorstep of the teahouse on the edge of the Beifong estate. “Look, Asami… I don’t want to sound - _pushy._ And I’m not saying you haven’t thought about it but… well, have you thought how much of a difference you’re going to make in his shoes…?” She pouts entreatingly. “Bright side, right?”

 

“Appeal to incurable innocence, I like it,” announces the voice of Bataar Jr at doorway. He pushes in between them to go slump on the divan in the outer parlour.

 

“Well, I don’t feel innocent,” Asami says as she unties her muddy boots, not in the mood today.

 

He huffs and they share a tenderly mocking glance.

 

“It was a compliment, Asami.”

 

-

 

_The United Kingdom of Nations had always been in a tug of war between the two ancient powers of whose blood it was constituted, out of which had emerged in defiance an enlightened, enterprising spirit neither offensive like the Fire Nation nor lofty and ancient like the Earth Kingdom._

 

_The first queen was the daughter of the first king, who had been installed by the Fire Lord to take care of a colony secured but longer particularly prized since the exhaustion of its mineral reserves. A century or so later, the second ascended after her brother the King died in the conflict that preceded secession from the Earth Kingdom after a temporary reabsorption. The third queen remained the namesake of Yue Bay after annexing all its islands. A fourth did not exist, yet._

 

_It’s Sunday and Asami has been moved to read history._

 

_And scarcely in its long history has their country had an unmarried regent, is what she (re)discovers poring through the archives in the central library for..._

 

_...Inspiration. So she’d like to tell herself, but now she’s sparing only guilty glances to her notepaper, most of her attention sucked into the record books and papers she had spent the afternoon searching out._

 

_The task at hand is simple. The quiet misery it represents, the uncertainty that mounts each time she considers it (the heavy certainty that its completion will symbolise), on the other hand, are enough that two hours in the library have yielded about as many words. Somehow being in here still holds more appeal than facing the Longyang delegation before they leave, though she’ll have to at some point, eventually._

 

_Asami is here to sit and mull, to be frank, which is the closest thing to peace and quiet for her these days. The last of the autumn leaves stick to the domed window in the rain - autumn already._

 

_She’s good at avoiding people. For the most part._

 

-

 

Midnight after the day that her personal hell had broken loose, Asami was finally alone.

 

Thirty minutes alone with her thoughts almost feels like too many, her hands clenched painfully over the handlebars in the cold; so if not for the terrible risk that her imminent crash represents, it might actually feel welcome.

 

As it happens, it’s sudden, frightening and very unwelcome. More frightened is the look on this unsuspecting jaywalker's face, and more unwelcome is the bang as his head hits the only street lamp lighting this alley.

 

“I am _so_ sorry!” Asami dismounts faster than she can think, the image of the figure in the dim light branded on her mind.

 

She rushes to the man - and she’s the one practically paralysed; steeped to the neck in the panic that hits ruthlessly. Where had her mind gone? Nowhere fast: Lien was right, she was in no state to be driving (well, that was why she had taken her bike. Anyway-)

 

As she kneels and schools her breath the second jolt of dread reroutes her mind - here is a _sure_ fire way to attract attention. Not the good kind, she hears her father’s retinue of specially vetted PR coaches in her mind, as if there is a good kind.

 

At least it’s late and dark and fairly empty on this street. Dark enough for her to have missed the shadowy figure. So she consoles herself, and steadies her voice.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

Asami reaches tentatively for him. The young man sits up, declining her hand as though he hasn’t even noticed it (she realises he probably hasn’t), rubbing the back of his head where it had made contact with the metal. Asami’s hand curls in the air before her, helpless. The man shakes his head and blinks.

 

Blinks.

 

Asami’s heart quails. What are the chances that he would recognise her? He looks young, smart - his _uniform_ tells her he must have to remain... well-versed on current events (her chest roils painfully again, the wound fresh.) She deliberates whether to confess everything right now and have it over with. And meanwhile, he braces himself on his hand, and his eyes leave her face at last.

 

They go straight down - he’s embarrassed.

 

“I’m so sorry,” she repeats, a little breathless, feeling her own face colour. Her tentative hand returns, and she sets it gently on his arm this time.

 

If there had been much irritation on his face, she only catches the last of it. He straightens his spine and his expression, then screws his eyes as if to recover his senses, slightly disoriented. “It’s - it’s okay.”

 

She extends her hand properly to help him up, willing silently that he would speak more. That he won’t have recognised her face. Won’t go selling some story of being run over by the Princess sneaking around in the middle of the night, sketchy, under cover of dark - well, just like -

 

There she goes again. Asami refocuses.

 

He’s tall. She takes her hand from his grip. Closer to the light she finds that it’s a face she knows.

 

It’s a good in, or a good way to get even before he… realises anything.

 

“Wait, I recognise you…” His eyes widen just as hers do. “I’m sorry,” she says, for the hundredth time, but this time it’s inquisitive.

 

“Do you… did you ever play for the Fire Ferrets?” Some of Asami’s agitation settles at the absurd happenstance: this feels slightly less like an accident of pure inconvenience. Her mind scrambles for his name.

 

He shrugs and rubs his nose. “Uh, yeah.” Then he sticks his hand out, the getsure a little delayed. He clears his throat. Only when he raises his eyes to hers does she notice it’s the first time he has done so since she pulled him up. The light falls awfully favourably on the planes of his face. “I’m Mako.”

 

Asami’s turn to come back slow. She shakes Mako’s hand. “Asami.” She snatches her hand back, clasping both in front of her chest now. “Mako. Are you - you’re sure you’re alright?”

 

The vague daze of his response tells her probably no. “Yeah, I’m fine. Thank you.”

 

“I promise, this isn’t like, a habit of mine…” Asami laughs, out of nowhere, a rush to explain herself (not very well) under his slightly abashed gaze.

 

He laughs a little too, and smooths the shoulder bag at his side, as if making to leave. “Really? Uh, maybe you should teach me how to ride one of those, you know, to be safe.” She has the distinct impression that jokes are not his forte; but that this isn’t his first attempt today nonetheless. Something makes up for that. She smiles wider. He remains slightly absent.

 

Asami - relief, concern and the slightest excitement mingling - stops him from leaving with a grip on his forearm again. “Hey, no. Let me get you some water or something. I wanna make it up to you.”

 

It turns out Officer Mako had been on his way home from a late shift. Many of his shifts were late; he didn’t mind staying back at the precinct for the night shift. He _was_ a probending champion, from the world tournament Asami had followed obsessively in her teens. Only her recurrent concern interrupts the incessant questioning once this has been cleared up.

 

“Asami -” Mako looks her squarely in the eye, the wobbliness of a moment before gone. The grip around her glass tightens as he speaks her name - her name unadorned - for the first time. She has to wonder if it’s such an intimate thing for any one of these others milling around in the garden behind this tavern, crowding it with ghostly breaths. “I promise I’m fine.”

 

“Anyway, what happened?” She swallows and takes a draw of the peppery tea she had bought herself along with Mako’s, opting wisely against another real drink this weekend. “You guys were amazing.”

 

Mako shrugs. “Grew up.” He wipes his mouth. “Nah, I figured it was time to get a real job, you know, full time.” His eyebrows flash knowingly. “Bills are year round. So you were quite the probending fan?” His brow arches again.

 

Asami shakes her smile away. “Why does that surprise you? You hardly know me.”  

 

“I don’t know you,” he says plainly. “And I’m not saying it does, you just seem…” He rubs the back of his head where he had bumped it again, a glance over her person so gentle it feels barely conspicuous; even though she’s waiting for it, open for it - even though they both are vibrantly aware of it. She stiffens a little, in her crisp slacks and her neat suede jacket.

 

Mako’s eyes fall briefly with his attention (the twitch in his jaw tells her it’s the pain, poor thing) but then as he returns it almost immediately, there’s a smile that turns sheepish. Asami thinks about his gaze on her face, as it rests there, again, long, despite his vague diffidence. She doesn’t know by what miracle he’s failed to recognise her - or if he has - but it’s difficult to disentangle that anxiety from the other one sparking up her stomach.

 

“Okay, I know that you had more than your fair share of fangirls back in the day,” she says, sukcing her tongue. “Not that I was one of them.”

 

Mako rolls his eyes. She wishes badly that it were light enough to see his face properly. He changes the subject a little awkwardly. “So what about you? You were in a rush tonight. I know I’m off duty, but I’m pretty sure you were past the speed limit back there.”

 

She gives him an incredulous look. Alright, he definitely doesn’t know who he’s just threatened to ticket. His question, however, can leave her nothing but sober. “I don’t know…” she tries, frowning.

 

“You seemed off.”

 

“I thought you didn’t know me.”

 

He laughs.

 

Asami can’t join him. “Well, yeah, bad night.” She picks at a calloused spot of skin on her forefinger with her thumb. Someone’s elbow knocks hers at her side, but she continues to look down.

 

From the corner of her vision she still registers the slow nod that Mako gives, clearly wondering if he should expect her to continue. She decides a kind stranger is perhaps the best person she could find tonight.

 

“Um, family problems. My dad, he… he dropped a real bombshell on- on me today. So I’m a little cut up right now. I was distracted.” She shrugs, feeling defiantly noncommittal as soon as she turns her thought fully to the situation, not allowing it to creep up on her again. She takes a long sip of her lukewarm tea.

 

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Mako says. So laconic. She isn’t deterred by his terseness, but she won’t leave him feeling awkward.

 

“Yeah. I just... need some time. You definitely don’t have to hear it.” She sighs deeply, giving him a reassuring nod, to which he smiles wryly. “Private drama.” Terribly public private drama. The casual dismissal serves to stamp on it in her mind, like calling it small will make it so. But she’s already gone, back a quarter of the clock, back to her father’s huge study and a sheaf of papers heavy as lead. Her breath is a little short.

 

“It’s alright, actually,” Mako says suddenly. “My life’s a little short on the drama right now.”

 

She has to smile at him even as her insides churn. “Well, it’s a pretty big deal. I don’t know what to feel about it, but I’m not happy. And - ” She looks to his eyes for understanding, to know he’s with her so far, and happy to take what she’s dealing. “I’m not sure how it’s all gonna work out right now. My father, he’s not an easy man. He’s not the man I thought.”

 

It’s not much of a weight off her shoulders but she finds she can breathe easier for the admission.

 

Mako nods conspicuously. What else can he say? She lets the chatter and the clink of glasses around blur her thought momentarily until he speaks. “That’s… tough. I’m sorry. Is your mom in the picture? Siblings?”

 

She meets his eyes and shakes her head. “Actually, my mom died a long time ago.”

 

And he can’t know the poignance of that fact to her present agitation: he’s going to see the tears in her eyes and close right up.

 

Mako’s eyes do jump, but then he takes her hand. “I’m sorry,” for the third, most heartfelt time. And then he says, “I lost my parents, too. I was eight.”

 

It’s not what she expected. “You did? Oh.” She sets her glass down instantly, her other hand coming up to clasp over the one he has taken. The laughter of a rowdy group behind them flares and she leans in, wanting to shield their moment.

 

“They were killed by firebenders,” Mako explains; and if he hasn’t long made peace with the fact, it doesn’t show on his face. But Asami’s gut twists again.

 

“...My mother, too.” Should she be amazed? She has to leave it at that, of course, no matter how tempting it is to pour her heart out.

 

That leaves her with his hand in both of hers. Asami squeezes, takes her hands back and clasps them in front of her. His gaze is light and long and strange again. For a second it practically bares her, but it’s too light for the moment, and too long for the man who she was quite sure was blushing under her gaze a minute ago.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

“Just a little dizzy,” Mako admits, finally.

 

She pushes away the glow that keeps jostling with the heaviness in her chest and brings him back with a grasp on the wrist. “Hey, I think it might be best if we took you to see a doctor, just to be safe. You can hop on my bike.”

 

She’s concerned about the adrenaline just in case he _isn’t_ all right, so she tells Mako to put her arms around her and close his eyes. That way he can feel the breeze and relax. There’s a night clinic out by the big Four Elements near midtown, not too far from here.

 

-

 

_Anyway, she remembers that her history tutor had claimed it unusual, that so few of their rulers had been unmarried. In the Earth Kingdom it was perfectly acceptable for kings at least to keep concubines, though the highest-born of these were effectively queens by another name. Not so different in the Fire Nation, only there the female Fire Lords kept many lovers, too._

 

_The Kingdom of Nations, ever the deviator._

 

_The queens regnant were in fact even fewer and farther between than unmarried regents: just a handful in a millennium, and none since the full departure of the Fire Nation from their lands. Most of them still married young. Asami frowns. The memory of their histories swirl in her mind as she crosses her arms and lays her head over the book._

 

 _She casts a weary glance to her notepaper. It isn’t blank, at least: she’d managed to scratch out the date._ 13th Day of the Eleventh Month, 178 A.G. _Almost a year._

 

-

 

Asami chews her nail.

 

The doctor turns to her awkwardly, fumbling through half a bow. “Er, Your Highness, Princess.” He clears his throat. “Your bike is waiting outside, if you wouldn’t mind… Back entrance, we don’t want to cause a scene, of course.” He gestures helplessly to the door. Asami assures him on his way as best as she can, practically ushering him out in.

 

Then she turns her sinking face on Mako.

 

He looks like he’s about to pass out for real this time.

 

“Wait, maybe, I think - Asami, I do have a concussion.”

 

Asami can’t help her burst of laughter. As it passes she comes back to him and softens. Then panics.

 

“Actually... well, maybe now’s not the best time…” She raises her hands, placating. Mako shoots straight up in his chair, blinking, his face white. Asami winces.

 

“Wait, _you_ \- I -” He closes his eyes and exhales through his nostrils.

 

Asami almost smiles behind the curled fist fluttering before her nervous mouth. “You don’t have to say anything,” she continues gently. The words flow, whatever she needs to calibrate their realities and ground him right now. “I just...I like to go out and clear my head sometimes. It’s not a big deal. I didn’t mean to hurt you, of course. And I - I liked talking, it was just easier…”

 

Eventually one of his eyes cracks open. Mako scrutinises her blankly, there’s the slightest of creases in his brow. Asami just wants to reach out and smooth it. She bites her lip.

 

“Wait. I just - need a moment-” He eyes her almost warily.

 

“Asami,” she says. “You can call me Asami.”

 

His brow knots again as if to say, _are you sure?_ Trepidation mixes strangely, sharply with a bubble of affection. Asami breathes and tries not to smile again. Then she gives in. Seconds fly and fly.

 

“Mako?”

 

He blows out a long breath, finally. Asami follows his line of sight to the newspaper on the bedside, the one with her father’s face on the cover.

 

“I’m an idiot.”

 

Outside it’s chillier than ever. She pulls on the gloves some attendant at the clinic had found for her, which she had accepted with gratitude. “I never forget my gloves.” Except today, naturally - she feels dismal.

 

Mako lags slightly behind her. When she looks to him, he still seems a little rattled. Her sadness vanishes at the sight of him; his apprehension vanishes at her grin.

 

“Where to?” Asami smiles. “Don’t give me that look. I’m taking you home. Mako!”

 

-

 

_Asami closes the book with a slap before returning to her draft, sending particles of dust into the air. Enough procrastinating. She pushes it to the corner of the desk beside her work gloves and turns to the clippings she had found to help her craft her words.._

 

 _She takes up her pen for the first time in an hour._ I am glad to share the news of my engagement, to which my father has given his enthusiastic consent.

 

-

 

Her fist lay clenched on the wad of papers, the torn _confidential_ seal from the thick folder in her other hand.

 

“How could you?” Asami’s voice is so much smaller than she’d have liked. The bitterness in it doesn’t cut but trembles. She can see the pitying cast of regret swim in her father’s eyes, darkening all the time that he gazes on her.

 

Asami doesn’t want pity for her to be the condition of his regret.

 

She pushes her chair back from the table, the friction of the legs on the polished wood of her father’s study loud and harsh. Her fists fall in her lap and she breathes. Questions and more questions clamour for space in her head, her heart breaking over and over above them - making enough of a din that none manage to come to the fore. She remains speechless. She puts her pounding head in her hands.

 

The news broke before any of her father’s people could get to it - it was one of the tabloids in the city, the Daily Spirits or something like that, that worked faster from their crummy downtown offices than anyone in the palace could. _Hot off the press! A Royal Scandal: King Hiroshi in bed with the United Brotherhood. A fresh investigation reveals the king’s pet project is not as clean as…_

 

Innocent he obviously wasn’t, but she had searched desperately for the signs of his ignorance in the seventy-page report. It detailed the fruits (and fruitful it was) of a private corruption investigation into Future Corp, the brainchild of her father’s favourite school friend - of them both, many said - and benefactor of his royal investment, the holdings built on some of the family land that had paid their House’s way for centuries.

 

For years the court had thought him too close to an organization that swam in rumours of extremist sympathy almost monthly. Despite such concerns it had been something the press were more loath to capitalise on, painting him rather as the poor widower, the brave resilient King.

 

Now all that was effectively vaporised: Future Corp’s most loyal customers, it turned out, were the United Brotherhood.

 

The very United Brotherhood that targeted anarchist benders and republicans alike in the name of establishing a kingdom, a haven, of non-benders and non-benders alone. Arms were not supposed to be on Future Corp’s production line, and yet that’s exactly what they had been making, and shipping straight to the headquarters of the Brotherhood militia.

 

Then the death knell, on page seventy-two, underlined twice by their head press secretary in the copy that circulated the entire court: the detective who combed through the company’s finances had traced the funding of the under-the-counter weapons straight to the King’s private purse.

 

Asami’s head had not stopped swimming since she closed the file on page seventy-two. She had had no idea there had even been a private investigation. She saw _emergency meeting with the President_ on the daily programme that Lien handed her when she woke up, something she definitely had not planned herself, and then she had gone straight to her father’s secretary to do the hard work of finding out.

 

By the time her father can give her the time of day, it’s twilight.

 

“How _could_ you?”

 

He’s spent the last half hour saying this is not how he wanted her to find out, as if the issue here is her finding out.

 

“Asami, you have to understand…” He takes a strange breath as he changes his tack. “It’s not a bad cause. It’s _our_ cause.”

 

Her head shoots out of her hands. “It is?!”

 

He takes the seat opposite her and she represses the urge to leap out of her own. Her father’s eyes narrow. “They aren’t bad people, you know. They protect the likes of us from - from...” He swallows as though he’s about draw a weapon he he wishes he didn’t have to. “The men who killed your mother. They’re gone now, and we have the Brotherhood to thank.”

 

Asami’s tears leak before she can stop them. It’s not that invocation, not the memory, it’s that _this_ \- the vicious way he’s guilting her - is the proof that her father is too far gone to be saved. “I lost her, too, you know. The United Brotherhood -” she spits the name, “they’re killing people - your subjects - in the name of the country, in _our_ name. You -” Her nails dig into her palm and she forces her hand open. “You don’t care, you’re - you’ve practically been _sanctioning_ it.”

 

There’s nothing placatory about her father now.

 

“You are being insolent. Do you see what’s happening out there? There are people calling for our removal. The benders have long been allied with the anarchists, they’re not sure what the point of _effete_ leaders like us is exactly.” He snarls. “You would be wise to take less for granted. I am simply protecting my place - your place. How can we serve if we aren’t _here_ to do so? Do you want to end up like your mother?”

 

She could cry. There is one thing endangering his precious legacy; and it’s the beast of revenge that has infested his mind.

 

“You’re not much of a king. You’re a zealot.”

 

Hiroshi claps his fist on the table. “Leave. We’ll talk about this when you’re in less of a state.” His teeth are clenched.

 

Right, there’s damage control to do. For all his insane defense, her father knows he’s made a grave mistake.

 

Asami needs air, needs to be far away from the chaos already wracking the palace. But she grinds her heel in the floor, unmoving. “Mom would have _hated_ you for this.”

 

-

 

_The paper forgotten again, she comes eventually to the last of the fading oil portraits in the reference album, many of which are accompanied by grainy pictures made with the earliest sliding cameras. The first clear photograph belongs to her grandfather and his wife, printed in fading sepia. Then there’s her parents, not long after their wedding by the look of it, and one of all four together. Her parents again, after their coronation._

 

_Asami’s focus rests on her mother’s smiling face. She thinks about what the next few entries will look like, how she will be in none; what she thought of marrying into the royal house, of being in these pictures._

 

_She won’t think of him._

 

-

 

“Where are we going? Is it a surprise?”

 

“Oh,” Mako flashes her a nonchalant sort of smile, “seriously, nowhere special.” His mouth twists in concentration as he continues down the street, eyeing for somewhere to park. He’s very careful in her car, more wary of the paces he goes through as he turns or shifts the gear than Asami thinks she has ever been. “You said you wanted to see where I grew up, right?”

 

They’ve come to a part of town she’s never had much reason to venture in, though she remembers a couple of blocks back a school she had visited on a charity job a few months ago. They park on the corner of a grocery market and Mako leads her down a steep alley she hadn’t noticed between the densely packed outlets, hopping down the last few paces where the slope has been tiled into wonky steps.

 

They emerge on a bustling, sunlit street. She recognises it, though not by name or even the specific appearance: this is one of the old migrant settlements dotted around town; crowded and more organic than the neighbourhoods delineated in the original city plan. It would have been a slum twenty years ago. Asami smiles at Mako.

 

“I remember my mom used to bring us here,” he says, as they pass by a small bakery with a floury handprint on the window. A bell barely audible over the drone of the ovens tinkles when they enter. Asami buys a small parcel of cakes and they sit outside on an elevated section of the kerb in the shade of a tree.

 

“They’re better this way, I think,” Mako says, picking up a cake as Asami is about to.

 

“What are you -”

 

He produces a tiny flame in his other hand like a blowtorch, and heats around the edges until they’re brown. It crumbles and melts in Asami’s mouth, the burnt aftertaste heavenly.

 

She’s impressed. “Experiment,” she explains, holding a finger up, picking up an unburnt cake. Mako watches with mild affront as she affirms his statement for herself - she’s unable to help her merry scoff at his frown. “Wow, you’re right,” she laughs. She feeds him the rest, as cavalierly as possible with her heart in her throat.

 

There’s a hapless energy to his nostalgia. “I don’t really - recall,” he says, when Asami asks if it was the same old woman at the counter in there. A couple of vendors pass, carting their wares and calling them out into the muggy air.

 

A dog comes and curls in the spot in the shade next to Asami, and she feeds it before it can make a fuss, though Mako gives it a wary glance.

 

“Bolin and I - after mom and dad died, we had to leave, just to survive. My parents didn’t have much of a network in the city. They met here but they had only come for work, in the beginning.”

 

“What did they do?”

 

“They both started in the factories. My dad was an earthbender - pretty good money here since there aren’t that many benders. Mom was in the kitchen stalls at the market, and she worked as a clerk too once they made her a manager.”

 

He doesn’t want to know if she finds that quaint, and she doesn’t know how she finds it either. Foreign - that’s all. She has to wonder, no matter how premature the thought feels, how they might have found her.

 

“Where did you and Bolin go afterwards?”

 

“All over,” Mako says cryptically. “But across the station, that’s Triple Threats turf.”

 

“I read about them,” Asami says. She draws the scarf over her bound hair further up, feeling her head throb in the heat already. It’s uncharacteristically warm for the beginning of spring, but then, it feels like it could never be winter here.

 

Mako cups her hand with the cake in it this time, and scorches it deftly so that all she feels is a quick ring of warmth in her palm, though the touch of his hand is warmer. First he finds her eyes for her assent; Asami is touched at his forethought.

 

He continues for a while as she absorbs the sights and sounds with his commentary. “There’s a bookstore somewhere around here that my mom loved. Also there weren’t so many _cars_ before. Over that way is Dragon Heath -”

 

Asami pulls the name that those words evoke to the fore of her mind like a thread. “Isn’t Crooked Chao from around here?” There was a time she knew every name in probending within a hundred miles of the city. And this fellow was as notorious as they came, dodging his way out of multiple cheating scandals scott free, who knew how.

 

Mako smirks. “We trained together once. I prefer Toza’s place.” At that Asami turns to him, a sly smile playing on her lips. He reads it in an instant and returns her playful tone. “Oh, I’m sorry, you have to be able to lightning bend to visit Crooked Chao’s den.”

 

Asami’s eyes widen. “You can lightning bend? Where did you learn that?” 

 

Mako is unreadable for a second. “Just a job.” He scratches his chin. “So have you ever-” He puts his arm around her shoulders to draw her out of the way when someone drags their rusty bicycle across the pavement behind them. Asami feels it all the way down to her fingertips. “Have you ever been down around here before?”

 

“Just up where we parked. I told you about my engineering program,” she reminds him. “We do school visits to get the kids into it. I visit the girls on the scholarship sometimes, it was one of those trips.”

 

“They must love that,” he says, with genuine admiration.

 

“They’re so much fun.” Asami smiles as she glances around again. “I think a few of them are probably from around here.”

 

She’s thinking out loud now. “I just - never really thought of coming just to visit. I mean - I’ve never sat on the kerb before…” They both laugh and Mako pulls the slipping scarf back over the crown of her head.

 

“You must think I’m so -” She holds her palms out and shrugs, trusting him to understand.

 

Mako frowns, his eyes glinting with humour. “Mm, well. You took me to the _hospital_ for a little bruise.”

 

Asami’s face falls in indignation before she laughs. “Hey, I was _worried_ about you.”

 

“Okay, Princess.” He bites away his smile at her embarrassment.

 

“What if - what if you, like, passed out on the street and some car ran you over?”

 

“Then it would have been my time.” He gives her nothing, but the affection is evident in his gaze. Asami shakes her head, rearranging her long skirt to let the faint breeze skim over her legs. She shares some of the water in her bag with him.

 

When she puts the bottle away she wipes the condensation from her hands on her the skirt. “You know, I thought I knew the city but I don’t. Well, I know a _map_ of it.”

 

Mako is watching her thoughtfully. “I’m guessing you wouldn’t get a chance.” She sighs in dejection - he guesses correctly.

 

So after that they go everywhere.

 

First the bookstore, where Asami balks at the fact that he reads history books for _fun_ , and Mako asks her why in the hell he would want to look at a mystery novel after a grueling week detectiving at work. The bursting bazaar in the old tradesmen’s district that Asami’s only ever _smelled_ from the outside; where the fruit is twice as large and five times as cheap as what they import in the palace kitchens; and where Asami learns, for all her skill with numbers, that she can’t barter for her life. The uptown bars where she reserves a balcony seat, orders drinks from the top shelf and makes him guess their names; names all the flush clientele in the saloon below and makes him guess their dirtiest scandals. The smoky clubs where neither of them are supposed to be, where it has to be dark and they have to be ever so close lest someone that shouldn’t recognise her.

 

-

 

_Asami leafs back through all the records she dusted off relating to the Fire Nation specifically. And to the imperial family, to him. She needs a refresher, someone else’s read on this, with her own mind all blocked up with resentment and fatigue. She rifles through the more recent clippings - there’s one about Asami’s own graduation..._

 

‘No whisper of Asami’s now rumoured former flame Fire Prince Iroh, though sources close to both prince and princess tell us it’s officially a day for the famous young couple. This week the dashing prince sails back to the Fire Nation, carrying the hopes of all the city’s bachelorettes...’

 

_Where a month ago she might have looked on this as a bittersweet memory, here in the library she feels her stomach churn at the thought of Iroh. This is the simple trigger._

 

_Oh no - she’s going to hate him. And she hates more the inevitability of the fact. Of all the things to encourage such surety._ _She never wanted to, but she’ll hate him for what neither of them are really to blame for. For being convenient, for letting Asami consign herself to a future of regret and alienation._

 

_Forget love. They may just have to work on like, on a mere cordiality, if Asami can’t get her head straight in time._

 

-

 

A shame, because they had been more than cordial for a long time.

 

“Asami.”

 

He approaches her with a polite smile. It’s been a while - the last time they had met properly had been the gala where Emi met Rajiv, a minor noble from Kirachu Island, and now they are at their engagement party (though granted, Emi works fast.)

 

After a drink she leads Iroh to the dancefloor, where he’s happier, uncharacteristically, to trip over his feet while he talks about his latest campaign.

 

She smiles up at him. “Don’t they teach a proper waltz in the Fire Nation?”

 

Iroh laughs congenially. “You sound like my sister.”

 

“Well, we _are_ cousins.” They laugh in unison - an old (though not forgotten, apparently) inside joke about the long tradition of intermarriage between their kingdoms that had been a great deal funnier with the distant potential prospect of another.

 

“You’re breaking my heart, Asami.”

 

The comment confuses her, until she remembers and perks up. “Wait, I taught you this dance!” She gives a sheepish snort, a little ashamed, but not truly affected by the lapse in her memory.

 

“We went to that resort at Chameleon Bay, remember - that trip with your flying society during winter break.”

 

“Right! I was crazy about you.”

 

The memory suddenly fresh - and farther than ever. It’s in her very tone, the wistful indifference of these words that would have cost her her entire dignity that winter. The same can’t be said for Iroh, whose bearing stiffens somewhat, in a blink, at her blase remark.

 

-

 

Su and Baatar’s anniversary soiree is at seven o’clock at their sumptuous mansion. They married at the end of spring, like Asami has always wanted to.

 

Smaller though it may be, Asami much prefers this house to the palace, with its experimental modern architecture and sumptuous gardens. Mako is here - not reluctantly, but not quite eagerly either - so dapper in the suit Asami picked out for him that if he were on anyone else’s arm she knows she’d be stupidly jealous.

 

“You should have more of your clothes tailored,” she says, pulling him by the cuff to take his hand.

 

“I _do_ have them tailored, I just do it myself. So tell me who’s who.”

 

The band in the corner picks up to a pleasant if bland tune, the perfect conversation accompaniment. Asami guides his gaze across the room.

 

“You know Opal from last week. Those are her parents,” she nods in the direction of their hosts. Perhaps the parents she wishes she had - so easy and free-spirited that their slightly overbearing nature is almost liberating. “They’re doing these huge construction projects down in Zaofu - that’s why she’s Duchess Zaofu, the _real_ Beifong estate is down there… But they had some land up here too and he loves working with the university…”

 

“That’s Bataar Jr.” Mako knows about him; Bataar and Asami are frequent companions. “And then…” She scans around. “Oh, the twins. Wing and Wei. I bet you can’t tell them apart.” She takes a glass of wine from the waiter and sips disdainfully as Mako looks where she directed him, before continuing. “They’re campaigning to have metalbenders included in probending,” she says unenthusiastically, a purist.

 

Mako frowns and they share a scoff of fervent dismissal, insisting over one another how metalbending isn’t separate from earthbending. Asami giggles into his sparkling eyes, before turning and finding the most distinctive shock of hair in the mill of heads.

 

“That’s Huan. He’s… he’s still in school doing art, but he loves his amateur theatre too. Now he’s directing a dance reinterpretation of Love Amongst the Dragons with _two_ empresses in the lead,” she says fondly.

 

“I’m sure you recognise Emi and Iroh.” She nods towards the stately pair deep in conversation with one of Bataar’s friends by the elaborately draped table with the cake.

 

“Remind me who’s older.”

 

“She is, just barely. And she could be the Fire Lord tomorrow, she’s got the chops. I went to school with Iroh,” she says mildly, almost as an afterthought.

 

Mako leans into her just a little and asks teasingly, “Does she scare you?”

 

“Of course not. She’s intense, like her mom,” Asami adds, to make the situation objective, smoothing the front of her jade green dress casually. “I always got on with Iroh better.”

 

As if on cue, Iroh turns and catches her eye. Then he strides over to greet them. Asami introduces Mako, slinking her arm into his. Iroh glances between them before shaking Mako’s hand.

 

It’s not until a couple of hours later, reveling in Asami’s laughter as she drags him away from a lively, _normal_ (Mako’s words) group of Opal and her college friends, that he learns about Asami and Iroh.

 

“You… you dated him?” Mako’s face falls despite his best effort. He smooths his expression with an effort. “The _Fire Prince_?”

 

“You don’t keep up with the Daily Spirits, do you?”

 

She laughs, a tipple or two from wine drunk, slipping some of the pastry in her hand into his mouth. Mako chews absently as his brow furrows again without the careful conscious smoothing.

 

“When I was studying, until he left to join the Imperial Air Force. It was just a college thing.” She smiles, grasping his chin. “You jealous?”

 

“Of course not.”

 

She recognises his mimicry of her earlier immediately.

 

Maybe she doesn’t quite expect it; Mako’s immediate lightness in spite of the obvious displeasure. She takes him by the arm again. “Are you having _fun_?”

 

He gives a noncommittal shrug, just to tease her. Asami huffs in exasperation, before it dissolves back into laughter. She pulls him behind one of Su’s florid sculptures in the hall, Mako grumbling half-heartedly; leans up to whisper in his ear. “What, you’re not having fun?” She bumps her helpless smile up into his, watching his warm eyes flutter, “let’s make this a little more fun.”

 

He straightens momentarily, bright red, when she kisses him; kisses his neck. A moment to close her eyes and find her bearings, while they remain snickering into each other’s shoulders, so that Asami can orient them to the nearest of the myriad guest rooms in this huge house.

 

-

 

It hadn’t been long before the party that their secret relationship stopped being very secret.

 

Asami supposes she had known what she was doing: official duty or not, broad daylight or not, the shoes you wear to a function as public as the yearly Spring Festival are a statement, so getting security to let through an attractive young man to keep on your arm for the rest of the celebration can be nothing but.

 

Afterwards, she makes a thoughtful decision to sit quiet through the noise - pointed whispers between various personnel when she runs past them on the staircase. She declines her father’s oblique request to talk about it, sending his messenger back wide-eyed, and calls Opal (who already knows) instead to tell her how she didn’t dare go anywhere near the public relations office today. She does glimpse Jiro glaring at her back in the mirror when he thinks she can’t see; and even Lien approaches her before she goes to bed the next day, somewhat confusedly. Asami apologises for any confusion, and explains that she met Mako when he was assigned to her security detail by the very helpful Chief of Police when one of her usual people had fallen ill halfway through an outing, yes, and she took to him instantly.

 

The real furore is outside the palace.

 

“You know, you’ve finally given people something about my family to root for again,” she chuckles, sitting in Mako’s apartment late in the evening, having told Lien she would be at the Beifong estate that night.

 

Mako, still mortified, holds the newspaper someone apparently handed him this morning up gingerly. “What, by -”

 

“Infiltrating our ranks! And you’re a _heartthrob_!” Asami laughs, helping herself to the final sip of the bottle of wine on the coffee table between them. Then she turns serious, more cognizant of what she’s saying with the evidence of her lack of sobriety in her hand. “I’m sorry. It’ll blow over, I promise. I just wish…”

 

“What?” Mako says, nudging her knee when she trails off.

 

“I just want to protect you.”

 

He looks down sharply, embarrassed. “I’m telling you, Asami, this is the most interesting my life has been in - maybe ever…” She can tell this unnerves him, though, but the reassurance is enough to placate her for now.

 

“How was work, Mako?”

 

“Like I said, interesting. You know they don’t allow press in the station.” He smirks. “And my boss… not too impressed,” he admits. “So if you’re worried about me losing perspective -”

 

“Shut up,” she says, rising and taking him by the shoulders; smiling, ready to kiss him as soon she can bear her weight down somewhere.

 

Mako uncrosses his legs so that she can straddle him, but he’s pensive as she waits for his gaze again.

 

“What about you? How is it with… I know you’re stressed,” he says, sounding reticent despite the firm phrasing.

 

Asami shrugs, letting a hand fall to her side again, before she lifts it to tuck her hair back. “I haven’t spoken to my father about anything, if that’s what you’re asking.” She sighs. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen. And I hate it. It feels like…” she sighs, resolved to the fact, “they’re _waiting_ on me to fix it or something, and I’m only - making it worse, apparently - and I don’t care…I want a break.”

 

She smiles fancifully once her attention rests on his face again. “They do this speedboat race on Whaletail Island that I’m dying to try.”

 

Mako perks up. “I’ve been wanting to go forever!”

 

“I’ll take you. Before the summer’s up.” She has no idea when or how, but she’s determined to figure it out.

 

He looks hesitant. “I’ve been saving up for a while, actually, I don’t really - I guess I wanna deserve it, you know?”

 

Asami feels a little foolish then. He doesn’t believe in being whisked away on a whim, rightly so - and she’s still learning it’s not always an option, not for everyone. “Right, of course.” She can’t help but droop.

 

He must feel the strain she’s under, though: maybe it’s something that he can’t quite know. He says after a second, “Well, maybe if the Chief lets me take my holidays all at once…” Mako tightens his arms around her.

 

Asami presses her cheek to his, pulling the strands of his hair between her fingertips. “I’ll make it special, I promise.”

 

-

 

 _Asami strikes a line through_ glad _, a word so weak it could possibly expose her, replacing it with…_ delighted _. There. The pen she worries at her mouth is encased and nibbed in classic Earth Kingdom silver, the kind she’d spent the afternoon testing alloys of with Bataar Jr in his lab. It reminds her of what he had said the other day. Innocent._

 

_Is it her, hoping for the unrealistic best as always?_

 

-

 

“I don’t know why you wouldn’t tell me about this earlier,” Asami says, crossing her arms, but it’s more confusion and disappoint than ire that underscores her words. Any of that has been long subsumed. She scuffs a boot against the leg of the table between them in frustration.

 

Mako averts his gaze, clasping his hands together. He doesn’t answer for a moment, focusing on his drink. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realise it was something that - would come into this…”

 

Which is fair, but it doesn’t sound entirely truthful; Mako, if anything, is overly cautious. He had asked what to call her, for crying out loud.

 

Asami uncrosses her arms. Before she can continue, he speaks again.

 

“I guess I didn’t want to disappoint you…”

 

She shakes her head. “You know I don’t care about that stuff.” She stops him with a gentle hand on the shoulder, is sure to have his eyes for her firm reminder. “It’s not who you are. I know that.”

 

He sighs dismissively at that. “Oh, sure, but do they?”

 

The ready reminder makes Asami tense again. She can’t say the news of Mako’s connection with the triads surprised her upon the slightest reflection - she should have gleaned enough from the careful slivers of his past that he revealed from time to time - but the way it broke, to the world, did. It plasters papers that yesterday had carried adulatory pieces about their fairytale romance, or whatever; everything she tried her sometimes paltry best to pay no mind to, so that Mako wouldn’t, would have none of that on his shoulders.

 

Asami narrows her eyes. “I don’t care what they think. Neither should you.”

 

To her mild surprise and mild hurt, he lets his head cock and and laughs, not meanly. “That’s sweet. But it’s your job to care.”

 

It’s the worst job in the world, to care about what people think - appease their half-understandings of the world, of _her_ world. Her father would have been adamantly against this from the start, of course, if she was on speaking terms with him. But she could guess his distaste at this news well enough, and found it laughably ironic. Cruelly, the world and the court were on his side - those who in their casual injustice could pardon him despite awful and wilful transgressions, ensure him the cushiest send-off, while holding Mako under the microscope for things long and well beyond his choice and control.

 

Mako. She wants desperately to protect him.

 

Asami has a hunch deep and uncomfortable in her belly about where and who these triad connections had surfaced from.

 

The discomfort gnaws and gnaws at her, and when she learns at Mako’s later that night that he has received a telegram from one of her father’s secretaries - finally flares the anger.

 

But in the same breath that she’s never wanted more to drop everything and run, she knows with finality that it’s the last thing she can do. The _one_ thing she can’t do. It’s heavy on her shoulders, on her mind - so heavy on her heart that she can barely keep her eyes open as she sits at the lake early in the morning with Mako’s side pressed all along the length of hers, feet dangling over the pier on the restricted side, lashes grazing his shoulder. He recounts, with brief searching pauses, the stories his parents told about the now faded murals on the embankment - a version of people-watching apt for the people-less scene here - while she pulls her fingers softly over the planes and sinews of his arm, the lines of his hand; feels her calloused fingertips catch on the fading burn scar on his wrist, again and again just to make sure this isn’t the last time.

 

-

 

President Raiko knows better than most people that PR is tricky. This awareness sits awkwardly between them when he requests a private meeting with Asami, without her father’s knowledge.

 

He coughs. It’s a stuffy room, boiling in the mid-afternoon heat like the glowing window is an oven door. And Asami is trapped in here.

 

She waits to sit so that he will have to, so he’s damn near sneering with discomfort by the time he does.

 

“Your Highness,” he begins, “we know there have been a lot of - tensions - around the court lately. Now, I don’t wish to impose anything on you -”

 

_But you will._

 

“It’s unfortunate the position His Majesty has been left in. For us all,” he hurries to clarify. This language is odious. Why can’t he just _blame_ her father like everyone outside this wretched establishment has sense enough to? “And so, of course, it looks a certain way when…” His fists clench on his thighs. He looks her in the eye with some gusto. “We don’t want any more associations with any kind of - anyone underhand.”

 

She has to admit to herself that she hadn’t expected him to be so forthright. She flashes hot inside.

 

Is a master at keeping it inside.

 

Asami stares unblinkingly. Raiko’s discomfort mounts and mounts.

 

“Your Highness, I only want to implore you… to consider that you have - a remarkable opportunity.”

 

The least she can do is make him spell it out. “What do you mean, Mr President?” She can play the fool if she wants, everyone is all too ready to believe it despite anything she achieves to the contrary.

 

Raiko looks a little startled, and he adjusts his glasses to give himself a moment. “Well, what I mean to say is…” He splays his fingers so that his hands make a triangle, oddly conciliatory now. It only grates on Asami. “You’re going to be the Queen of the Kingdom of Nations, sooner rather than later, as we all know now. I know you regard such a responsibility - a privilege - with the utmost gravity. And with it comes a chance you should not forsake.”

 

As he speaks, her anger wilts into despair. That, of course. She can’t contest that. A princess can do some things for herself; a queen - has no self. She can no longer keep her steely gaze.

 

Without it, Raiko is emboldened; every word splits her further. “To rebuild, to fortify. If you forge the right alliances,” his eyes shift to the side briefly, “well, it could save this monarchy.”

 

 _Maybe it doesn’t deserve that_ , is her final defiant thought. But _queen_ keeps ringing in her ears like the sentence from a juror. It’s not a responsibility she can defy in good conscience. Nor is it one she can defer much longer, like every day doesn’t bring her closer to the dead end. She - they - were doomed from the moment she learnt of it.

 

That was the day she had _known_.

 

-

 

“Your father…?”

 

She fights to raise her teary eyes to Mako’s, the slightest rueful nod. It’s news that couldn’t wait, as much as she wants it to.

 

“I -” Asami coughs, turning down to swipe quickly with the back of her hand, before she finds she has nothing to hide under his unflinching gaze. “Yeah, I mean, not _him,_ but everyone… Well, I guess it was a matter of time. It would be silly to think he could stay.”

 

She skirts around it, pretends like it’s all about him, when the core of the issue is that now it’s about her.

 

“So that means…”

 

Asami nods hesitantly, watching his eyes.

 

Mako frowns in consideration. “Well…” He looks about, before laughing a little. “That’s… certainly more of a promotion.”

 

Not a reaction she has yet had. Asami hides her face in her hands in her incredulity, but when she lifts it back up she’s laughing loud; Mako shrugging in the corner of her vision.

 

Then she sighs gravely, and Mako turns thoughtful again beside her. She answers his unasked questions, setting the facts out partially for her own benefit, now that his presence here can ground her out of delirium.

 

“Jiro - my father’s first secretary - he told me he’s going to face the press around this time next month, right after the official announcement. I read the draft of the release.”

 

Mako’s eyebrows rise, though he tempers his expression. “That soon?” He takes a sip of his bottle of beer, eyes pensive.

 

The implications are filing through his mind, while Asami looks pointedly away. She wishes she could brush his concerns off, had the power or the plans in place to do so. She tries her best.

 

“It won’t happen for a while, another six months at least.” Only in the voicing does it strike her how little a timespan that is. “These things take time. And not everybody considers this that much of a constitutional crisis, believe it or not. We have so many things to work out before - before I can succeed him.”

 

He smiles a little awkwardly, but the sadness is evident in his face. “I don’t know what I should say - congratulations?” He tries. “Good luck?” Asami shrugs, equally helpless. What she feels like is a commiseration but it’s the last thing she wants to see on his face; this flicker of defeat is enough to break her heart.

 

“I hope we can still go on that trip… I don’t know, before the summer’s up.”

 

“Of course!” Asami sighs. “I don’t… Not yet, Mako.” She says, almost pleadingly. Not yet _what_ remains too fresh and immense to really conquer right now, but the silent agreement to think about it later is well understood.

 

She wants to take the moments she can, for as long as she can. Mako is here at their favourite spot to see the ocean and the city at once, with the beer he puckishly calls champagne, and he’s wrong, tonight is about _his_ promotion, since that’s the one actually worth celebrating (she thinks, wryly not ruefully, with determination.) She toasts to him and ruffles his hair. It’s nearly morning now, she made it here a little later than planned. But she had been determined to make it - for him, she said, maybe because he might not understand just how much a respite for _her_ each rendezvous with him is, breaths of pure air in her ever more suffocating daily life.

“So tomorr- today, is my birthday,” Asami says. To change the subject - he knows, of course. “Su ordered this special octopus from Ember Island,” she tells him.

 

“Well? Where is it?” He catches Asami off guard again and she rolls her eyes. Then he continues, reaching into his work bag. He’s going straight to work after this - always considerate, she knows, careful to work around Asami’s chokehold of a schedule, with all the insistences that he has nothing important going on, anyway. “I got you a gift.”

 

Whatever Asami expected, it isn’t this, and she isn’t sure why. She softens immediately, turning her full attention to him. “You did…”

 

“It’s not much. I remember you said you wanted to read this. I’m sure you could find a copy, but - this is mine. I’ve had it ever since I had a place, and I marked out the parts I liked… Besides,” he says, smirking, “You should remember this stuff’s not all bad.”

 

Mako hands her the book she had found him with, the first time she met him not on time, in a cafe on the edge of town right at the beginning of summer. It’s a beautiful volume that collects the observations of some ancient imperial astrologers. Half almanac, half history book - but ‘more like legend’, as Mako had insisted, so she’ll let it pass.

 

“I want you to keep it. So, happy birthday.”

 

Asami, listening and brimming with love, knows better than to argue. The prospect of accepting something with this kind of sentimental value should daunt her, _upset_ her with what she knows is coming their way - and it does. But accepting it nonetheless is just... that much more heartening. She wants every little piece of him that she can keep. Asami takes it, running a finger over the worn leather of the cover, before pressing it to her chest.

 

“Thank you,” she says. Mako kisses the top of her head, making her weightless, disarming her with the suddenness of her joy. It’s almost miraculous to be overjoyed in this moment from the despair she had felt at the proclamation that sealed her fate mere hours ago.

 

Asami smiles, though he can’t see it. “I love you, you know.”

 

It’s the very words that make him pull away, and then he kisses her lips.

 

-

 

_Asami sighs onto the paper, careful not to smudge the ink when she slumps. Delighted - is a measured kind of word. A new business obligation kind of word._

 

_Maybe all these words feel such a way not for their inherent quality, but simply being an instrument of this abject lie. She crosses it out._

 

I am _overjoyed_ to share the news...

 

-

 

It’s a mere two months after the fulfilment of her tragic mutual understanding with Mako that Asami can find it in her to bite the bullet her father, Jiro, the Fire Lord, likely, and the entire court have waiting on a spoon for her.

 

Iroh is a pillar of strength and stability. Exactly what the country needs, what the court demands - even if Asami is left blowing hot and cold. It’s just that whatever her personal misgivings are, they still leave one versus a million, and her thought turns naturally to the million. Would it kill her to be selfish once in her life?

 

He frames his offer in terms they both know suit her best: let’s get you some peace of mind. “Yes,” she tells him, torn in two. What she can’t promise is happiness, but if he can promise stability, then she can, too. He still loves her terribly, and resents the lack of reciprocity more and more, to the point that it will test that love very soon, if it isn’t already. “I love you, too,” Asami says, blinking away tears. And it’s not as if it isn’t true, right?

 

-

 

_She puts the pen down, the gap between the first and last sentence filled, and stretches. It feels like a season since she started._

 

-

 

A season ago, she had said (a final test of her fate), “Don’t you love me?”

 

It’s supposed to be a rhetorical question, something to pierce through the confusion, his armour - but Asami finds suddenly that she doesn’t know the answer for sure, and doesn’t want to know. She has a vice grip on his wrist; and the white of his clenched knuckles on the parapet, stark against the grainy stone, tell her it’s not easy for him either. It’s a salve to her pain and an excruciating amplifier at once.

 

He doesn’t love her for _asking_ , for sure - she bites her tongue a second late. That was so unkind to them both. He winced when she asked.

 

“I’m not sure how much that matters, Asami.”  

 

She breathes a long breath through her mouth. He’s right, and he’s saying it and laying it out so she doesn't have to. _Hold it together._

 

“You need to be _okay_ , now and for the future. You’ll figure it out, Asami.” His voice is tight. “You can worry about being happy later.”

 

He uses his eyes to encourage her, they steel to brace the statement, lend it resolve. None of this quite obscures the pain and frustration in those clear amber eyes. But little of that frustration is at her, all of the pain for her. Again, that only makes it harder. Asami reaches up to kiss his cheek, so chaste she wishes she hadn’t bothered: it is not what they deserve.

 

“I know, I know. I’ll never forget you.”

 

-

 

_The Royal Court Circular of The United Kingdom of Nations_

_14th Day of the Eleventh Month, 178 AG_

 

_The King is glad to announce the engagement of Princess Asami to His Royal Highness Prince Iroh of the Fire Nation, General of the United Forces. The King and the Fire Lord and their respective families are joined by both courts in extending their heartiest congratulations._

 

_The Crown Princess says in an exclusive profile to be printed in the UKN Times this weekend (please see the press office for a copy Sunday morning):_

 

_“I am delighted to share the news of my engagement, to which my father has given his enthusiastic consent. I know that Iroh and I will continue to enrich the relationship we have nurtured since childhood. Words can hardly express my feelings at this time.”_

 


End file.
